Superman: The First Serial (1948) – Review

There have been many adaptations of Superman over the years but it was Columbia Pictures who brought the world its first “live-action Superman” to theatres – Max Fleischer at Paramount was technically the first one to bring Superman to the big screen but his was an animated version – and while Columbia’s superhero serial was not quite on par with Republic Pictures’ The Adventures of Captain Marvel it remains one of the more successful entries of its time.

The first chapter of the serial does an economical job of retelling Superman’s origin story, with Jor-El (Nelson Leigh) being ignored by the Kryptonian Council when he warns them that their planet is doomed. He and his wife Lara (Luanne Walters) place their infant son in a rocketship and send him to Earth where he is found by a kindly farm couple Sarah (Virginia Carroll) and Eben Kent (Edward Cassidy), who are noticeably amazed at his remarkable abilities.  Once they pass away, the now adult Clark Kent (Kirk Alyn) decides to become a reporter – this is so that he can learn swiftly where and when he is needed as Superman – and he lands a job at The Daily Planet by scooping Lois Lane (Noel Neill) on a mining disaster, much to her annoyance and the delight of the paper’s gruff editor Perry White (Pierre Watkin), a man who sends his reporters into danger on a constant basis.

Can you guess which one is Clark Kent?

After stunning the world with his many rescues, Superman is tasked by the government with guarding a top secret weapon called the Reducer Ray, which is supposedly more powerful than the atomic bomb, unfortunately, The Spider Lady (Carol Forman) “Queen of the Underworld” wants the device so that she can…I don’t know, rule the world or something like that.  But when Superman thwarts her first efforts to steal the Reducer she declares that she’ll find a way to stop Superman from interfering with any further plans. Of course, the real question is  “How can she hope to stop a man who is as fast as a speeding bullet, is more powerful than a locomotive, and can leap tall buildings in a single bound?” Well, it turns out that a kryptonite meteorite conveniently lands on Earth the very next day. Is this providence or prophecy? Now it’s only a matter of getting some of her men to steal the meteorite and unleash its deadly rays against Superman.

I hope he’s packed his lead-lined underwear.

The bulk of this serial’s fifteen chapters consists of numerous nefarious plots by the Spider Lady to steal the Reducer and when that fails eventually she tries to have a duplicate manufactured. Her initial step involves breaking a criminal scientist (Charles Quigley) out of prison so that he can both weaponize the kryptonite and maximize the destructive power of the Reducer Ray. Then she has the inventor of the ray, Doctor Graham (Herbert Rawlinson), kidnapped, and through mind control, he is forced to build a duplicate of his most destructive invention. Through all of this Clark, Lois, and cub reporter Jimmy Olsen (Tommy Bond) will tangle with various henchmen as they try to discover the secret location of the Spider Lady’s lair.

I would also love to find out where she lives. Wowzers!

Kirk Alyn’s portrayal of Superman exudes charm and embodies the duality of the character and his charisma shines through as both the mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent and his super alter-ego, while Noel Neill’s brings a delightful blend of intelligence and tenacity to the character of Lois Lane, making her a strong counterpart to Superman. The chemistry between Alyn and Neill is one of the highlights of the serial, adding depth to their on-screen dynamic and that makes the pairing so great. Then there is Caroll Forman’s performance as the Spider Lady and she knocks the part out of the femme fatale out of the park. Packed with suspenseful cliffhangers, this first Superman serial keeps viewers eagerly awaiting each new chapter and despite some predictable plot elements, at least by today’s standards, this serial paved the way for the popularity of the superhero genre.

“This looks like a job for Superman.”

Stray Observations:

• Poor Kirk Alyn didn’t get an on-screen credit for this first outing because the studio wanted the kiddies to believe they’d actually hired Superman to be in this movie. You know, because kids are dumb.
• Noel Neill would go on to play Lois Lane in the third of the television series The Adventures of Superman, replacing actress Phyllis Coates who left the role after only one season.
• Both Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill have cameos as the parents of young Lois Lane in the 1978 Richard Donner version of Superman: The Movie.
• Fans of Superman may find it weird that his Smallville parents are named Sarah and Eben, instead of Jonathan and Martha, but Sarah and Eben had been used in several incarnations during Superman’s early adventures in books and on television.
• Like many incarnations of Superman’s origin story, we see Clark Kent wearing glasses before deciding to take on a secret identity, which doesn’t make a lot of sense considering he has super-vision.
• The cave featured in Chapter 4 “Man Of Steel” is the same one that was used as the Bat Cave in the Adam West Batman series.
• Clark Kent gets into several fights with The Spider Lady’s henchman, many of who land solid punches on Clark’s square jaw, but as he’s the Man of Steel shouldn’t their knuckles have broken for their efforts?
• The Spider Lady announces over the radio that she plans on stealing the kryptonite from the museum but for some reason Superman doesn’t fly over there immediately to move the kryptonite somewhere safer.

“I may be faster than a speeding bullet but I’m not all that quick on the uptake.”

What makes the Superman serials from Columbia Pictures unique was their decision to utilize animation to depict Superman in flight, often orchestrated by having Kirk Alyn suddenly leap up and transform into an animated version of Superman that would fly up into the sky, and while this looks a little goofy it does have its own charm and makes this incarnation of Superman just a little more interesting. And as was the case with most serials of the time, the budgets were limited so Superman was relegated to fighting underworld goons in ill-fitting suits and not armies of robots or rampaging dinosaurs as would be found in the Max Fleischer Superman animated shorts.

“It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a cartoon!”

This serial also ran into much the same problem Republic Pictures had with The Adventures of Captain Marvel, which would be “How can you create a suspenseful cliffhanger when your protagonist is super strong and invulnerable?” For Captain Marvel, they simply had Billy Batson gagged so he couldn’t yell “Shazam!” but in the case of this Superman serial, they mostly had Lois or Jimmy in danger with Superman arriving in the nick of time to save them. And sure, there were some “Oh my god, they’ve got kryptonite” moments but that tactic couldn’t be utilized all that often as kryptonite is quite lethal to Superman. To have him survive an encounter with it more than once relied on the bad guys being completely moronic – I did like that in Chapter15 “Superman in Danger” where the idiot goon throws the kryptonite at Superman and misses,  but it then lands inside a furnace and turns into kryptonite gas that incapacitates our hero. Talk about being both dumb and lucky. Then there is the Spider Lady’s web of destruction, which is as cool as it is deadly.

A shocking end to her enemies.

As mentioned, Clark would often find himself in a fight with one of the Spider Lady’s henchmen, which he’d have to lose to maintain his secret identity, but he’d often end up looking dazed as if actually hurt, which confused the hell out of me because it’s one thing to put on an act but another to carry things on too far. I also couldn’t help but think “Damn it, Clark, even a regular guy can throw a decent punch. Why not let yourself win at least one fight?” Sadly, Kent in this incarnation is pretty much useless and he must be left alone so that he can run off-screen so that he can come back as the more action-orientated Superman. Of course, this is good for Lois and Jimmy as they spend a good amount of these fifteen chapters in the clutches of the Spider Lady’s goons.

“We’ll just leave you here alone, what are the odds of Superman showing up?”

Produced by Sam Katzman, the 1948 Superman Serial remains a timeless gem in the history of cinema, standing tall as one of the earliest and most influential portrayals of the beloved Man of Steel. This 15-chapter serial, directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet and Thomas Carr, not only captivated audiences of its time but also laid the groundwork for the superhero genre to come. Despite its age, this serial stands the test of time and serves as a testament to the enduring legacy of the superhero genre. It not only laid the foundation for future Superman adaptations, comic book movies, and television shows to come it also proved that a strong character with a compelling narrative could captivate audiences for generations. “Up, up, and away!”